I love a Christmas market. I especially love going to a Christmas market in a European city. And if that happens to be in a beautiful country that I haven't been to before? Well, we're frankly getting into perfection territory at this point. Which is basically how I would describe my first (very festive) trip to Vienna with my friend Alice.
After cheersing to a fabulous weekend ahead with a couple of wines at the airport, we arrived in Vienna late at night. We were staying at the Centre Apartments and we found it to be a great base to explore Vienna from as it was in a really great location.
Naturally we were in Vienna for the Christmas markets and it wasn't long (approximately 3 minutes) before we came to our first one! It wasn't actually open at that point though so instead we went and found a cute little cafe for breakfast. Yes cake is a perfectly balanced breakfast; no I won't be taking any further opinions on this.
Then we started our little walking tour of the city! A typical first day for me in any new city. We started at the Votive church and luckily I made it into yet another one without bursting into flames, so that was good news.
Then we got Christmas market number 2! Altwiener Christkindlmarkt was very pretty and quite classic in its decor. A lot of it was quite foodie and they had a couple of gift-based stalls too.
We didn't even make it round the corner before we stumbled upon Christmas market number 3! The Weihnachts markt was set in a really pretty square so it was surrounded by gorgeous buildings. It was kind of busy and didn't have the best flow round it, but loads of food options. Especially good for meat and cheese lovers!
We hadn't actually bought drinks at the market so we were more than ready for one by this point. It felt like a real treat to sit outside in December and enjoy a beverage in the cold crisp weather, surrounded by the luxury shops of Vienna. They had some really pretty restaurant terraces to choose from!
By then it was that really gorgeous dusky time of day where all the fairylights just pop and come to life, so we went off for a bit more Christmas-market-ing. My most favourite Christmas lights in all of Vienna were the ones on this main high street, and we even popped in for a bit of shopping while we were there.
St Stephen's cathedral was certainly a sight to behold anyway, but with the added Christmas lights it was simply stunning. It was also Christmas market number 4 and we stopped for a mug of orange punch which made a nice alternative to the usual mulled wine. These little boot mugs were at all the markets and they were literally so cute! You had to pay a €5 deposit for them each time (which you got back when you returned the mug) but if you did want to keep it, I reckon that's quite a good price anyway.
We had the Weihnachtsmarkt at Maria-Theresien-Platz on our list anyway, but then it was recommended to us by a local as one of the best markets in the city. So we made that Christmas market number 5, and our final stop for the day. We saw loads of beautiful buildings on our walk there, and then market was absolutely beautiful. So many lovely craft stalls and trinkets. The flow of this one was kind of confusing again; the plaza is set between two identical museum buildings, so the market kind of wrapped around the fountains and stuff that are normally there. We probably ended up doubling back on ourselves at least a few times! It was as lovely as promised though and I got one of the traditional local dishes, which is a boar meatloaf sandwich. Sounds adventurous but just tasted like sausage!
We'd had a really busy day exploring and with exciting plans ahead for the next two evenings, we opted for a more chilled dinner and drinks that night. After a quick look on Google maps, we landed on a restaurant called Wildling, which was a small plates, sharing kind of place. We didn't pick up on it until we arrived, but it's also a plant-forward restaurant. Meaning they do serve meat, but they only had 2 meat dishes on the menu and the rest were all vegetarian. They also had a lovely sustainable story about using local suppliers and they had a love of fermentation, so there were some lovely pickled elements on the dishes. We opted for all vegetarian, and had the most amazing feast. Pumpkin gnocchi, beetroot tartare, spicy cauliflower, creamy mushrooms and spicy potatoes. Everything was amazing! Although they did recommend 3-4 dishes per person and we're so glad we didn't listen - we couldn't finish 5 between us!
We woke up the next day to perfect blue skies, which we all know makes everything instantly prettier. It was great because that was the day we were exploring the more grand architecture (most of which is white) so it really popped in the sun.
Vienna is famous for Sachertorte (a rich chocolate cake with apricot jam) and Viennese coffee (a rich espresso topped with whipped cream). Naturally I wanted to try both while I was there so we searched for somewhere classic that served them. The Cafe Central looked like a lovely option but when we got there, the queue was as far as the eye could see! So we vetoed and went to have a look at Demel instead. The queue was still kind of long but much more manageable (and moving quickly) so we opted for there. It took around 20-25 minutes to get seated (in case you're planning a trip) and the building was so beautiful. It was also a place with a really rich history and they've been serving treats to the Viennese royalty for over 100 years. Alice and I shared the Sachertorte (amazing) and a portion of these cute little pancakes that you can literally watch them making in the window (also amazing). Again, don't make me tap the sign that states that cake is a perfectly acceptable breakfast food, especially on holiday.
Then we had a walk through the most gorgeous area in all of Vienna, going past the national library and the famous red bow Christmas decorations to the State Opera house. The architecture in Vienna is seriously so beautiful and regal!
Then it was time for Christmas market number 6 at the grounds of the St Charles Church. It was a shame the church was scaffolded up, but it was still pretty to see anyway. The market was a lot more rustic and less pretty than some of the others we'd been to so I wouldn't put it on your list per se, but it was on our walking route anyway so it was nice to see it and have a wander around.
Christmas market number 7 was one of my favourites. Probably because Belvedere Palace was already so beautiful on its own! I loved the lights and decor and loved that it was a lot more simplistic. They had a bar or Gluhwein stand for every 4 or 5 other stands there and they even had some cute little carousel rides too. We opted for a Gluhwein (the traditional name for a mulled wine) and enjoyed it in the sunshine, which felt very decadent.
Like I said, Belvedere Palace was simply beautiful. We had a lovely walk around the grounds as the sun started to go down, and were treated to a lovely picturesque view of it as we waved the palace goodbye.
Normally when I'm in wine countries, I drink wine. And when I'm in beer countries, I drink beer. Despite Austria being very much a beer country in my view, all the Christmas market-ing had thrown me off and I'd made it nearly 48 hours without a beer! So to fix that, I ordered a giant one as big as my head. It was lovely and we also got a Schnitzel to keep us going until dinner (another local delicacy ticked off the list).
The reason for us swinging by the State Opera House earlier in the day was a very exciting one; we were picking up tickets for an opera that night!! I'd never been to an opera before and had always wanted to go one. Vienna felt like the most perfect place to finally do it and I was super excited to dress up for the occasion. I went fancy! This black tiered dress was from ASOS a while ago, and I paired it with black stilettos. My approach to occasionwear is to simply buy it when I see it. If I ever spot anything nice in the sales, I just get it without anything specific to wear it for. Then when a wedding or opera or day at the races comes up, I'm ready with a new dress without the stress of searching. Obviously I do it within reason; I don't have an insane collection of backed-up new occasion dresses just waiting for an outing. But this one certainly proved perfect for its big night out as I felt like a princess.
The opera we were seeing was called Tosca, an italian opera that's been going since 1900. It was naturally therefore all in Italian, but there were screens in front of every seat with subtitles so you could follow along in your own language. To be honest though, the singing was so powerful and emotive that you could pretty much feel exactly what was going on just through the vocals alone. It was absolutely incredible and the orchestra were amazing too. It was quite long; 3 acts at around 40 minutes a piece, with 2 intervals in between. But it was so beautiful and powerful and incredible. The voices of the opera artists were just insane. It was time for another pinch me moment, where I just marvel that this is my life. The tickets aren't actually as crazy expensive as you might imagine. If you can plan far enough in advance, you can get tickets directly from the Opera House for as little as €18. We booked around a month in advance and since it's a coveted one, direct tickets were sold out. We bought from a reseller platform which naturally made tickets slightly more expensive; we paid €50 each for tickets that should've been around €40 if we'd bought direct, but our view was incredible. So all in all we were pretty impressed!
Getting dinner after the opera proved to be fun and games! We came out at around 10pm and most restaurants were saying they'd already stopped food, despite the fact it was Saturday night. Austria proving it isn't one of the European countries where you can go for dinner at midnight and no one bats an eyelid! We did manage to get in at this lovely pub though and despite the food not being the most instagrammable, it tasted amazing.
The next day we were back to frosty grey skies, but that was actually quite fitting since the area we were in was Salem vibes. We had a day off from the cake finally and went for an actual breakfast at a lovely little cafe. This loaded croissant was divine!
The Salem-looking place we were in was actually a park called Prater. It's home to a giant ferris wheel, and a permanent amusement park that felt like we'd landed in the Austrian pleasure beach. It was very cool having a walk round, and I loved the theming and decor around the park.
The purpose of our trip to Prater was for Christmas market number 8. This one was almost exclusively made up of sweet treats, including flavoured eggnogs, churros, cakes, and chimney cakes. The theming was suitably fairytale-like because of it - very Hansel and Gretel I thought!
Alice and I are equally obsessed with rooftop bars. So much so that after arriving at our chosen one 10 minutes before they officially opened, we were literally camped out in the coat closet while they tidied up after a private event. We must've looked very keen or very weird or both! Either way, it was worth it. The bar was really cool and I loved the music-themed vibe in there. It had lovely views of the city, and a festive outdoor terrace too. We were on the Lillet peach spritz' and they were going down an absolute treat.
Christmas market number 9 was eagerly anticipated as it was the most famous one. The Wiener Christkindlmarkt in front of the city hall was certainly a sight to behold. It was absolutely stunning and drenched in fairy lights, which I simply loved. But other than that, it was actually one of my least favourites. Yes it was gorgeous. It was also absolutely rammed, you could barely move and there were just crowds and hoards of people everywhere. The stalls themselves were offering the same as the other markets had been so there was nothing that made it stand out in that regard, but there was just no room to actually enjoy any food or drink you might want to buy. We had planned to get some food there but since neither of us were enjoying the busyness of it, Alice had the great idea to go back to the very first market we stumbled upon and eat there instead. So that's exactly what we did, but not before being treated to the sight of the floating love heart before we went, which was cute. In short, go to this market to take photos, then leave and go one of the others for everything else.
I'm so glad Alice remember Christmas market number 1! This one was actually in the university campus and it had a really cute Disney theme with loads of the characters made of lights. It felt a lot smaller and more independent and as a result, a lot of the stalls were offering quite unique crafts and gifts. They also had some cool food options including soup in a bread bowl (which I opted for) and these amazing cakes! We also got one last Gluhwein, because it would've been rude not to.
The plan for our last night was something we'd spontaneously booked there when accosted by a local salesman. It was a concert by an Austrian orchestra, with interjections of opera and ballet too, all hosted in a beautiful palace. We paid around the same as we had for the State Opera, which was overpriced in my opinion. The State Opera was much more lavish and prestigious to warrant a higher price tag, but €40-€50 for this concert still wasn't bad and we had the loveliest time. It was definitely missold on the ballet front; it was ballroom dancing not ballet. But it was still beautiful and we were even treated to a performance of the Viennese Waltz in Vienna, which felt like a special memory. The orchestra themselves were amazing, and I recognised a lot more of the classical pieces they played than I'd expected to. The first string violinist (also the concertmaster) had a really playful personality too and he added a bit of fun to the pieces! The boomers in the audience were ruining the vibe slightly with their phones. I'm talking filming for like 5 whole minutes at a time with the most tragic shaky camera work you can imagine! But overall, I loved this night and it was definitely an experience worth doing while in Vienna. It was also the perfect way to end our trip and we'd literally had the most amazing weekend! Overall, I'd say that Vienna was the perfect place for a city break, at Christmas time or otherwise. If you want a veritable smorgasbord of markets to choose from, some of the most beautiful festive lights imaginable, and enough Gluhwein to sink a ship, or if you simply want regal architecture, good food, and amazing performances, then make sure Vienna is on your list for 2025.
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